Patty Vetta and Alan Franks

INTRODUCTION & BIO's

Patty Vetta and Alan Franks released their first album "Will" in 1995, having performed together for a number of years.

This debut album by a stunning vocalist and a world-class songwriter, whose names will only be known to a discerning few, destroys the myth that there is no undiscovered talent in the world of popular music. The freshness of the songwriting of ALAN FRANKS, and the sympathetic vocal performances of PATTY VETTA combine to create an album of such high quality that it will enjoy a place in the mythology of popular music - although whether it will sell a million copies is something else entirely... Those who have operated small independent labels know that working with a little known act can prejudice survival, yet sometimes the temptation to share with a wide audience music which is by turns interesting, catchy and lyrically impressive cannot be resisted. This is such an occasion.

Patty Vetta and Alan Franks have been performing and recording together for more than twenty years. They have made four CDs of material written by him and performed by her, and made hundreds of appearances at festivals, clubs and on radio through the UK. Their first CD, Will, was named by Time Out as one of the top "Roots" albums of 1995. Several of the songs have been covered by other artistes, including "The Wishfulness Waltz," which became the title track of an album by the veteran folk-rock band, Fairport Convention. The songs have a wide range of styles, from the jazz cabaret of "Raining Millionaires on Wall Street," through the slow blues of "I wouldn't Do It to A Dog," to the classic English balladry of "The Frozen South Atlantic." Their work has received ecstatic reviews in the music press, and the late songwriter Jake Thatchray said: "These songs are true, complex, addictive things. I wish I could write, think and play like Franks, and sing like Patty Vetta." The musicians on their albums also come from a variety of musical disciplines, and these albums feature of the work of more than twenty highly respected instrumentalists and singers, including the
classical mandolin virtuosity of Graham Preskett and the passionate fiddle-playing of Fairport Convention's Chris Leslie.

Apart from being a musician and songwriter, Alan Franks is an author, playwright and award-winning poet. His many plays include The Mother Tongue, which starred Prunella Scales and Gwen Taylor at London's Greenwich Theatre.
His most recent were Previous Convictions at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond,and The Edge of the Land, which made a three-month tour of East Anglia. His books include the novel Boychester's Bugle and Real Life With Small Children Underfoot, a collection of the comic columns he wrote for The Times. In 2004 he was awarded the Petra Kenney prize by Poet Laureate Andrew Motion for his poem "The Old Tunes." In 2006 he was the winner of the inaugural Wigtown Poetry Competition, Scotland's largest. He writes on a broad range of subjects for The Times, and has interviewed many of the world's leading writers, actors and musicians. These include Paul McCartney, Judi Dench, Helen Mirren, Tom Stoppard, Arthur Miller, James Baldwin, Woody Allen, Ian McKellen, Leonard Cohen, Muriel Spark, Ravi Shankar. He was twice been nominated for a British Press Award.

"WILL"

Their first commercial album, this was named by Time Out as one of the top five Roots CDs of 1995. It came about after John Tobler, head of independent Road Goes On Forever label, had seen Patty and Alan playing at the old Weavers sessions in North London. The songs ranged from the music-hall pastiche of "I Only Loves Will," sung by Charlotte Moore, to the gospel harmonies of "Government Hill." Musicians on these recordings included lead guitarist Wes McGee, with whom Patty has sung backing vocals for nearly two decades, and fiddler Bob Loveday, a regular member of Bob Geldof’s band, and part of the line-up for Van Morrison’s 1998 album. Mojo Magazine praised the album’s "wide stylistic waterfront," while the lyricist Tim Rice described them as "clearly division one."

"LADDERS OF DAYLIGHT"

By the time this came out in 1997, "The Wishfulness Waltz" was already occupying a regular spot in Fairport Convention’s set list. One of the distinctive sounds on this album was the fiddle-playing of Fairport’s Chris Leslie, probably at its most remarkable on the triple-tracked breaks of the title song. Like "Will," "Ladders of Daylight" contained a broad range of styles - the bowed bass of Dave Olney on "I Once Loved a Girl," the Irish whistle of David Fitzgerald on "Islands of Oil," and the plangent high harmonies of Hank Wangford band-member Reg Meuross on "The End of the Line." Rock’n’Reel Magazine described the album as an admirable set of work.

Jake Thackray, with whom they had played two London concerts, said of the songs: "They are lovely, true, complex, addictive things...and I wish I could sing like Patty Vetta."

"ARMS OF THE ENEMY"

The third album is their most ambitious so far. Apart from the full-blown ballad of the title track, there is the Ry Cooderish dance tune of "Beautiful Music," the haunting and agnostic hymn, "Thief on the Stair," a four-verse novella "Things Get Lonely Here," a couple of soulful cabaret numbers, and the unadorned and unaccompanied folksong of "Late September." This time Patty and Alan are joined by the multi-instrumentalist and orchestral mandolin soloist Graham Preskett, young whistle prodigy Rebecca Laker, blues harmonica player Ned Williams and the fine drummer Steve Dixon. There are also return appearences by guitarist Wes McGhee, saxophonist Al Stewart, and accordianist Steve Reynolds. Patty’s husband Tony adds bass and banjo, as well as engineering.

ALAN FRANKS: "I was born and brought up in London, and first started to try and write songs when I heard the popular music of the Fifties. One of my favourite singers and repertoires was Marty Robbins, because I simply loved the idea of so much narrative being crammed into such a short space. Then I heard the songs of Cole Porter, sung by all sorts of people, and thought there could be no higher art form than all those sophisticated rhyme schemes in such cahoots with the musical line. Although I could hear a lot of music in my head, I had no way of getting it out, and so the songs were rarely more than poems. I sang in the choir at Westminster Abbey, where I was at school (with Andrew Lloyd Webber), and learned the guitar by slowing down the rims of records by people like Leadbelly, Jack Elliott and Pete Seeger. I also liked Leonard Cohen but had to speed his records up to get the same effect. While I was a student at Oxford University (with Bill Clinton) I started writing review songs - a three-minute Country and Western version of the Fall of Man is all that remains from this time - and performed at the Edinburgh Festival. I have written a number of plays, the last of which starred Prunella Scales at Greenwich and Guildford, published a book called "Boychester's Bugle", which was to have been a comic novel except that people seemed to take it rather seriously, especially someone who thought there was a portrait of him in it. I work at 'The Times', writing articles mainly about people in the arts, but I have also been a diary editor and humorous columnist there. I first started working with Patty when she recorded the music for a play of mine, and now we have started to perform regularly. I suppose I have written well over a hundred songs, although I would not own up to all of them. There is a particularly tasteless one about love and disability which I shall never play again..."

PATTY VETTA: "I was born in Pangbourne, Berkshire, into a musical family, although I spent my early childhood on horseback. Being at a tiny C of E school I sang the Magnificat at 5 years old, solo, at Sulham Church, so it was fairly likely that I would sing. I sang in pubs until I moved to London at age 17 where I started work in a recording studio. I thought this was the best place to be and within a couple of months I was asked to do some voice-overs and jingles for clients too skinflint to pay for a professional singer! Soon after I met The Settlers, remember them? One hit wonders, and that was in 1962. Nevertheless, they were still doing cabaret in the 1970s, so I travelled all around the world singing 'Grow, Grow, The Lightning Tree'. It was great fun but after two years of this, the group split, with me and the other singer/guitarist, Steve Somers, now a double bass player and sometime winner of 'New Faces', continuing to work together. With him, I performed on loads of TV and albums, doing backing vocals for Don Everly, Johnny Tillotson, Roy Clark, Joe Brown, Tom O'Connor, Ronnie Prophet, Bert Weedon, Terry McMillan, and Freddy Weller. I have also been the longest serving member of the Wes McGhee Band, and have recorded with Pete Sayers, Paul Millns, Tony Maude and Joe Giltrap, and toured with Johnny Cash and Billie Jo Spears. I now keeps goats and train dogs and love Alan Franks's songs to death. To sum up my life so far; I can say is that I've loved every minute of it and I wouldn't change any of it for the world'.